The Peter K. O'Rourke Special Achievement Award

The Peter K. O'Rourke Special Achievement Awards recognize notable achievements in the field of highway safety during the prior calendar year by individuals, coalitions, organizations, nonprofit groups, businesses, government agencies, universities or programs. About Peter K. O'Rourke

2010 Winner: Zero Fatalities

Zero Fatalities is a coalition of Utah highway safety partners working
to prevent traffic injuries and fatalities whose groundbreaking Texting
While Driving (TWD) video has fueled the distracted driving discussion
on a national scale. With distracted driving fatalities on the rise – and
a new Utah law with the nation’s toughest penalties for TWD – Zero
Fatalities knew that public education was imperative, especially since
few educational materials existed about this deadly behavior.

In the spring of 2009, Zero Fatalities heard about Reggie Shaw, a Utah
man who had been charged with negligent homicide for the deaths of two
men as a result of TWD as a teen. According to prosecuting attorneys, this
was unprecedented; never before had someone been charged with negligent
homicide because of TWD.

Zero Fatalities worked with Shaw to produce a 15-minute documentary educating drivers
about the dangers of TWD. This video shows how one teen’s decision to text while driving affected
so many lives. It includes interviews with the widows of the men who died and those involved in the crash, as well as
footage of Shaw being admitted into the jail. One of the foremost experts on texting while driving, Dr. David Strayer,
provides behavioral research on how texting impairs drivers. The video also covers the strict penalties for texting while
driving under Utah’s new law. The Utah Department of Transportation provided $60,000 in funding for video production
and organized a press conference.

After production, the next step was marketing. STAPLES® donated 1,000 DVDs for duplication and distribution. Every
driver education instructor in Utah received a copy, and the video was promoted on Facebook, blogs, and other social
networking websites. A special effort was made to get the video into high schools for presentations or school assemblies.

As the word spread, demand for the video grew. Within the first four months of its debut, the video had been downloaded
more than 1.2 million times. High school administrators and driver education instructors asked for presentations
in schools that were previously not involved in the program. Hundreds of companies, municipalities and community
organizations have asked permission to share the video with their families, employees, staff and communities.

The tremendous impact of Zero Fatalities’ TWD video has not been limited to Utah. People from other states and even
countries asked for copies to share with their friends, employees and constituents. The video has received national media
exposure from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Today Show and NPR, Dr. Oz and the Oprah Winfrey
Show. It also caught the attention of U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, who featured Shaw as a guest speaker
at the first national summit on distracted driving. Oprah also included Shaw as a speaker and showed clips of the texting
video when she launched her campaign against texting while driving.

The TWD video arrived just as public awareness of the dangers of TWD began to surface, and it provides a visceral,
powerful message about how this widespread and seemingly simple activity can really have tragic, lasting consequences.
It has helped fill the dearth of educational materials addressing texting while driving. Zero Fatalities team members have
heard from dozens of people who say the video has convinced them to never text while driving.

By covering all aspects of the situation, the Zero Fatalities video provided Utah and the nation with a highly effective way
to communicate about the inherent danger in TWD.